


Semper Fi

by EnemyMine



Series: Wants, needs and realities [11]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Episode Related, Episode: s03e01 Kill Ari Part I, Episode: s03e02 Kill Ari Part 2, Episode: s03e04 Silver War, Episode: s03e10 Probie, Episode: s03e23 Hiatus Part I, Episode: s03e24 Hiatus Part II, Episode: s04e02 Escaped, Episode: s04e09 Twisted Sister, Episode: s06e16 Bounce, Episode: s08e22 Baltimore, Gen, M/M, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10031525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnemyMine/pseuds/EnemyMine
Summary: Finally we can get a glimpse into the mind of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that happened...  
> Had too much stuff (life) on my mind and couldn't sleep and so I sat in front of my computer hoping the monitor would lull me to sleep.  
> As you can see, that did not work out as planned.
> 
> \----------------------  
> I tried to put in Hollis Mann, but she refused.  
> I tried to insert Michelle Lee's destiny, but she persisted I did not.  
> \----------------------  
> The M/M is again not explicit. It's more squint and you'll miss it. There might be a swear word or two. But this is the internet so consider this your trigger warning. Or something.  
> \-----------------------
> 
> Gibbs basically ordered me, that as much as I am currently busy with other stuff (life), I will have to come back to this series and write more. There is suddenly this whole slew of stuff that still needs to be brought full circle. 
> 
> I just really don't know when and how right now. (Probably when I can't sleep again. *yeah*)

The latest case was a SNAFU par excellence. It had the team running around in circles for days only to end up where it all began. Days of digital and real paper-trails that gave him headaches just thinking about it. He tried his usual cure of boat, basement and bourbon for that. Didn't seem to have much of an effect tonight.

In the end Renny Grant had been guilty. Obstruction charges were pending, since he had explicitly tampered with evidence, and it would be a matter of the DA to decide whether they might try and prosecute for fraudulent claim of a punishable offense too. He had after all pretended to have been abducted and planted stolen evidence from the original crime scene as proof for the fact. All just to make sure all three original embezzlers would receive punishment this time around.  
Which might not have happened, if he had simply left the knife with the victim at the original crime scene. The victim just happened to be the first of the embezzlers and Grant had planted the fingerprint of embezzler number two there, while sending faked proof of adultery to his wife, so he would get punishment either way.  
Well, Grant will have to own up to that in some way. The wife was in the process of killing her husband, when his team came with a search warrant. It might not be incitement but it sure was something in Gibbs' book.  
The third embezzler had left DNA traces on the murder weapon, so they would have caught the guy either way, even without the elaborate scheme of pretend abduction. But it seems Renny Grant was prone to theatrics, that with the way he tried to pull Tony DiNozzo into the whole mess.

Okay, from a revenge standpoint Gibbs totally understood it.  
DiNozzo had been the Special Agent in Charge when the embezzlement had been first investigated and somehow everything had pointed towards one very ready suspect, who just happened to spend three years innocent behind bars. But even when mistakes had been made, DiNozzo had not been the one to prosecute the guy. That had been the DA in front of a judge and a jury of twelve in a fair trial. Tough luck for the guy.  
On the other hand Gibbs now possessed enough clarity of mind to see, that DiNozzo would have never made such an honest mistake, if it hadn't been for him. He had left Tony hanging, thrust into a position he didn't want, with a team that was reluctant to have him. On top of that a director, who was following her own agenda and dared to use HIS agent. All while Gibbs was basically incommunicado at a Mexican beach, busy fixing up Mike's poor excuse of a house.

A big gulp of rotgut from a misappropriated glass jar, that had once held some lose screws, brought the satisfying punishment of a burning esophagus. The former marine had long since given up trying to keep his hands occupied smoothing over some wood or polishing some varnish. The “Kelly” was meant to be sailed after all, so he really should try to keep himself from messing her up this late in the game.  
Still he needed to do something and thus he picked up a random tool, turned out to be a smaller plane, and fired it against the farthest wall. He'll get it back, either when he needed it or when he would have to fix his boiler again. Either way, his tool were quality equipment and survived worse.

Yes, Gibbs was pissed. He really, really wanted to be pissed with DiNozzo on that one. After all “his case, his lead” and the team had screwed up, but no DiNozzo here to fix that mess. Because he just had to up and leave without a word!

A hand violently clenched around some sandpaper in perceived betrayal.

28 months and 16 days since Tony had been stateside. As far as Gibbs knew he had not stayed in contact with any of his former team members. Which had been the reason for the first of Abby's many, many temper tantrums during those first few weeks.  
But it had turned out to be the best alibi Tony ever had had when being framed for something. As much as Renny Grant had wanted to get his attention it simply was meant to fail. 

SOP would have been to contact the original case investigator and probably even even have them transferred TAD to work the case with the team. But since a) the suspect had shown an unhealthy interest in DiNozzo, b) his alibi was air-tight, c) all his very detailed case notes were part of his official report and d) another member of the original investigative unit was readily available at the Navy Yard in the person of one Timothy McGee, the request had stood no chance with Director Granger.  
The sandpaper followed the smoothing plane into the dark depth beneath the stairs and another big gulp slid down the former marine's throat.

He hated this case. He hated it on general principle. Too much confusion to be had, to much explaining to do. Since he still had to go see the director like a naughty school-child every time he closed a case and defend his conclusions in front of lawyers and potential bigwigs, this thing had been a nightmare from the start.  
17 months of this and he was ready to get himself committed, if that in turn would not involve having to talk to shrinks. They pretty much were up there with lawyers for him.

It all had gone downhill since Tony had left. 

One day Gibbs was enjoying his hiatus, the next he was back at NCIS full time and DiNozzo had gone. No word, no message, nothing. Just an empty desk in the morning and a new agent with a box introducing himself to Gibbs. With orders signed by the director to the position of SFA on the MCRT at once.  
Gibbs had immediately taken the stairs up to the mezzanine and stormed into Jenny's office, but she had already waited for him and without giving him so much as a chance to take a breath, informed him of DiNozzo promotion to Special Agent in Charge at another location and that there was nothing he could do about it. Said Tony had earned it.

Of course he damn well knew that his second had earned to lead his own team, that's why he had left him in charge after all! His brain might have still been a bit scrambled from the explosion, but he remembered the important things. His loyal Saint Bernard-like senior field agent was one of those.  
Well, so he had thought at that time. There was a lot of thing he had simply assumed for way too long. Way to go to break his own rule number 8!

How wrong he had been, was proven to him soon after the departure of the best young agent he had ever worked with. The quasi family he had believed his team to be had fallen apart at an alarming rate and no matter what he had tried, there had been no stopping the implosion.

A screwdriver imbedded itself with its blade into a wooden beam at the left side wall, while the now empty glass jar shattered somewhere towards the first step of the stairs.  
With practiced movement Gibbs took another from the shelf above the workbench, emptied its contents – some assorted nut bolts – carelessly onto its surface, put it down and with fierce momentum filled a nice quantum of amber liquid into it before taking a swig.

At first Gibbs had put the blame firmly at DiNozzo's feet. He left and all hell broke lose. On top of it Ducky complained about a difference of temperature at the work place or some such nonsense and Abby was always begging and close to tears and she had that damn counter on the wall and all those picture up... It had to be DiNozzo's fault, right?

The first newbie ran off after about three weeks, the second after just one. Ziva and McGee were equally as glad to see them go as he himself had been. No one was to sit at that desk, who was not part of their family unit!  
So finally Gibbs was able to convince Jenny to promote McGee. After all he had done the job while DiNozzo had been in charge and he had been on the team for over two years, had been in the Norfolk field office before that. He had the time and the experience. He was eligible for promotion.  
Or so he thought!  
Of course the team leader had not bothered to actually check the younger agents record before demanding him to be made his senior field agent. That was part of the job of a senior field agent and his erstwhile one had never complained about McGee being behind the learning curve. So he basically went with his gut. And hadn't that been a crash-landing!

Within just two weeks they were out of the most necessary of office material and within the third they had to borrow equipment from other teams for crime scene investigations. On one notable occasion Gibbs himself had gone to Abby to pilfer some latex gloves.  
McGee simply hadn't managed to fill out the appropriate requisition forms in due time and still stay on top with his latest case reports.  
Another week later the young agent had obstructed the investigation in his sister's possible involvement with a sailor's murder. No matter that they figured out that his sister was innocent, and drugged to become a victim herself. 

Yes, you do what you have to do for family. But you better be smart about it!  
The agent had not only bent the rules, but broken them! That had been rule number 14 straight down the drain.  
Since he had already a black mark on his jacket for probably being the one firing the kill-shot at an undercover cop, he had faced real repercussions this time. Demotion was a given.

Again a senior field agent short Ziva had started to feel entitled. But even with his greatest sympathies that was simply something that was not ever going to happen. The only female on the team was technically still a Mossad operative in a liaison position with NCIS. The most minimum requirement for special agents was to be at least a naturalized US citizen, which Ziva obviously was not.  
Still with her permanent in his ear and McGee whine about the unfairness of his situation and Abby fussing about, Gibbs barely had the chance to hear himself think. Add to that situation the screws he definitively still had lose at that time and his brain still was scrambled in some parts and it had been a catastrophe waiting to happen...

For the first time ever he had yelled back at Abby, when she just couldn't leave well enough alone. DiNozzo had been gone for two months, McGee was back at being a junior agent and he had to put up with some up and coming new senior field agent, who had just dared to remind him that since Gibbs technically was on the clock and they had no active cases at the moment, which would excuse him to step out of the building for a while, he would have to get his coffee in the break room like everybody else or to clock out.  
Sadly SecNav had just walked past for a conference with the director or Gibbs would have simply have had it his way either way. That was obviously not going to happen when the boss of bosses was privy to the action. Instead he had returned his coat to his desk and gone down to Abyy's laboratory. Once upon a time she had stashed a coffee maker there before she became addicted to that terrible CaffPow.  
Safe to say, he gone the longest without coffee anyone would ever willing be witness to that day, but was still from then on forced to find alternative ways of procuring his regular fix, but at least that particular SFA had vanished the next day.

Abby… Gibbs could barely fathom what had happened to the young, quirky, but brilliant scientist she had once been.  
He still vividly remembered the first time she put up a stink, because something hadn't gone her way. It had been when Burley had asked and received his reassignment as Agent Afloat. He had been due anyway after five years trying to keep up with Gibbs, his ulcer simply helped to sweeten the deal for the brass. Still Abby just didn't want to accept it and had Tony jump through hoops for months for daring to substitute for good old Stan...

Things spiraled downhill even more after the coffee embargo of 2006 – as the bullpen had started calling it.

McGee got caught with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar – expensive clothes, new car, jewelry – which led to the question how he could afford such things on a junior agent paygrade. The connection to a book called “Deep Six” was made fast. The similarities of the cases and characters in that barely novelization of the real NCIS grind were simply to obvious.  
Three strikes within just more than a year. The young man could thank all possible deities that he still had a job and was not behind bar for a very long time. 

Sometimes Gibbs saw him at the security check in the entrance hall. He currently didn't carry a government issued firearm anymore. No need for such things, if your working place is in-between a punch of computers in a secure subbasement of the NCIS headquarters. He still carried a knife though, which was cause for some satisfaction for the older man.

The book had caused people to pay attention to the small agency.  
An investigation into the security breach turned up Jenny's unjust revenge plan against an international arms dealer. Suddenly a lot of their shared past made a hell of a lot more sense to Gibbs.  
Like the “Dear John”-letter she had left him with. Yes, he had already met Stephanie, but the relationship was a far cry from heading towards marriage when he got involved with Jenny. Which at first was simply a matter to keep their cover intact.  
No, Jenny had always had great ambitions and no time for love. Again hindsight is 20/20.  
She joined the agency four years after Jasper Shepard's suicide, was probationary agent on Gibbs' and proved to be an asset during undercover ops. But within a year she moved on from that part of NCIS work, finding her way into the international politics side of things. She joined the International Anti-Terror Taskforce out of Europe after 9/11 and was promoted to director within just another four years.  
She always wanted revenge and that was the reason she had been that damn good at her job. That and she knew exactly whose elbows to rub to get what she wanted. 

At least until the brain tumor that was discovered during the overall investigation into the NCIS security breach had started to impair her reasoning.  
Seems she had been susceptible to suggestions and insinuations for quite some time.  
In that state she had demanded of DiNozzo to work undercover without backup for many hours a day in addition to his regular work shift. All in the name of finding an in with La Grenouille, René Benoit. Lastly Jenny thought to have found one with the daughter of the arms dealer, who DiNozzo was supposed to ensnare.  
It didn't matter to her that the NCIS didn't have jurisdiction or that the CIA already had operatives on the case. It didn't even matter to her that the young woman she wanted to use was utterly unaware of the dealings of her rather estranged father. She only thought of revenge.

And Gibbs didn't have her back and hadn't seen the signs. He swallowed even more of the burning liquid. She had been his “Probie” after all.  
But then Mike Franks had prepared him for a lot of things, but not to actually care for those under your command. He had more of that in the Corps than back under Franks' tutelage.  
Franks also never gave a damn about the inner workings of the agency as long as they were not hindering his job. He bent the rules left and right to fit his needs in an investigation, worked more with bullyboy tactics than actual investigative techniques.  
But Gibbs could relate to that mentality. The Corps was very black and white in that way. You obeyed or you gave orders, there was no in-between. Both Franks and him had been used to be obeyed by the grunts. When in doubt they diverted to the old tried methods. Worked for them. Did work for Gibbs too for the longest time. But then he had Burley to differ a lot of the tension his way. The former senator's aide was practically perfect for that.  
After Burley Tony had taken on a lot of the heat coming Gibbs' way….

He really didn't want to think about the younger man now, so he forced his inner musings back on track and onto the many ways in which Jenny had lost her ways.  
Gibbs couldn't help to remember her first day in office as the director. 

It was the day after Kate had lain so still and lifeless on that roof top. They had brought her body home and had tirelessly worked through the night for any lead on her killer.  
Well, they knew her killer very well, it was only a matter of finding his whereabouts and to take him down. That was an unspoken given.  
Especially since the bastard had also dared to attempt to shoot Abby in her laboratory in the early morning hours. She had luckily remained completely unharmed. Thanks to Tony.

“Ah, hell!” Gibbs couldn't help but groan out. It always came back to Tony anyway he tried.  
Tony who had held them all together during those days. Who had given each and everyone of them a dose of what they needed.  
He had confronted McGee's fears of mortality and had been there when the young agent had been finally ready to say his goodbyes to his fallen teammate.  
Tony had goaded Abby softly into a rage to pull her away from the verge of a breakdown only to make her realize that it was okay to miss Kate. That they all did.  
Once he was save after being shot at, Tony had turned around at did his damn best to goad his boss into anger, because of course he had been right in assuming that “Gibbs is not Gibbs when he is nice”.  
He had rallied for them all during these first few hours and how had they repaid him?

This time the filled jar crashed and spilled broken glass everywhere somewhere beneath the nearly finished cabin of the “Kelly”.  
As per over the years honed habit, he didn't take long to grab another container and filled another drink into it. Nobody was there to stop him after all.

As with a lot of things, Gibbs had come to realize that even back then things had not necessarily been how they appeared.  
With the change of power going on and the grief over their fallen family member, Ziva David had just the opening she had needed to slip in through the cracks.  
It had been quite indicative of her to immediately try to unbalance Tony with her incomplete knowledge from the dossier she had accumulated. Bringing up his upbringing was always getting a rise out of him on good days. But that day Tony was in tune with everyone's emotional state and had smelled something awfully fishy. He had not trusted the Mossad officer and had even told his boss so.  
But Gibbs had been to busy grieving to realize that he too was being played. Ziva made a show of wanting to be just “Ziva” to him. Which was a neat little psychological trick. Have the trained operative appear smaller, more fragile, unassuming and of course younger.  
And hadn't been that her plan all along?  
There was no doubt nowadays that her resumé had been altered to fit her objective of gaining Gibbs' trust. Even with his lack of knowledge concerning pop culture, modern idioms and behaviorism he always had that nagging feeling of not quite right when it came to her. But he simply didn't want to listen. Didn't want to expose her for what she truly was and not what she pretended to be.  
Ziva David was a spy and only played at being a surrogate daughter. There was not an ounce of truth in her when it came to their relationship.

Of course had Gibbs stopped and taken a breather during those days he had noticed the discrepancies of the story. No child of Eli David would ever do something without being order to do so by their father.  
Therefore Ari seemingly being in cahoots with Hamas was just what Ziva initially said to maintain her own cover. He had been an operative for Mossad all along. Which meant him taking that shot and killing Kate had been sanctioned by his father, just like it meant that Ziva had been meant to sacrifice her half-brother on behalf of her cover.  
It all just had fit together a bit too well in hindsight. Just like Ziva's friendship with the up and coming agent of NCIS, Jennifer Shepard. Mossad was just as aware as any other secret service on the globe that in the aftermath of 9/11 new blood was needed to make the decisions down the line. Jenny's ambitions fit the profile and with a hint here and some intel there, she was put in a premiere spot for the next promotion.

Tony had known. Yes, not everything, but he had known that something was not adding up. He had been unusually reserved in the face of Ziva David. Which she interpreted in needing to change her game plan towards him. Instead of keeping unbalanced with his past, keep him unbalanced by his hormones. Again she struck out. But this time Tony had caught on and started to turn the tables on her.

Damn, if that man was ever a natural when it came to undercover work. Not only when it came to personally maintaining a cover. Tony had a sixth sense for when others did the same. It was a reason why most of his prediction about a possible culprit proved correct. As he had once said: “You have to be one to know one.”

The bottle of bourbon had now lost about half of its contents, when at the beginning of that night only a sip or two had been missing. But Leroy Jethro Gibbs had royally screwed up and his liver would pay the price tonight.

Him running roughshod over not one but two investigations while DiNozzo had been the leader was more than enough evidence for the younger man, that he didn't want to stick around for that mess. And Gibbs had been a mess.  
Four months of hot sun, beach and cheap Mexican beer had done nothing to help his mental capacities. Yes, he had remembered a lot more than he had done before, but that was exactly what the doctor had told him. With time the memories would resurface and sort themselves out.  
Tony had done what he could to give him that time, without putting pressure on him or even taking the accolades. Jenny never filed that retirement package because Tony had bargained with her. To the point where he agreed to go undercover without backup.

Now after close to two years of continued non-communication between them, Gibbs could see what he truly had done to the man. And it hadn't even started with the explosion and his hiatus.  
They had been partners once. As much as partners were possible in the strict power structure of paygrades within the NCIS.  
But it had been only Tony and him for a while. He didn't count the TAD that came and went as if through a revolving door. They had talked and had become relative fast friends. Closer yet when Wendy left the man the night before the wedding. Someone needed to keep a close eye on him in those days. Those was the time when they developed the DiNozzo rule of “Never drink on a school night.”  
And when they fixed up that apartment of his in that death trap of a building. Well, it had gotten better in the last couple of years, but still there were more infestations and boiler outages than should have been possible. Beggars couldn't be choosers and the young man really had been desperate for somewhere cheap to stay. That with paying all those bills for a wedding that never happened.

He missed working with Tony. Because the man simply understood. Gibbs had never fully figured out the way his agent worked and if asked he only was told: “Work smarter not harder.”  
Therefore he again sidestepped successfully the actual question of how he just always knew.  
Tony had known when to bring coffee, when to sideline dispatch, when to go off one of his many movie related tangents to come to the point in which they were relevant to the case and when to simply present the facts.

All these headslaps, Gibbs now clearly remembered, had just been part of the incredible way DiNozzo tried to bring up new agents. When that red-headed menace from the FBI had been with them, he had resorted to investigation anecdotes to have her relate to a fellow investigator. Fell flat, but not for the lack of trying. That women simply had a one-track mind and only thought about getting Hussan Mohammed.  
Blew the op to take him down and nearly got Gibbs killed. Gladly not before he could make sure to double-tap him in the heart, thus making sure the objective had been achieved. He didn't know what happened to the menace after they had been back statesides.

No, the headslaps had been strictly prohibited by DiNozzo upon his first steps within NCIS halls. He had likened them to physical abuse. The only reason he had allowed the later had been to seem relatable to his “Probie”.  
McGee had needed a big brother, who was not safe from being admonished, but still be able to stand tall and proud, so he knew he could learn to be that way. Not the stuttering mess he had been in the beginning.  
With Ziva the case was different, which is why Tony had insisted vehemently to have him deliver some to her too. She needed to be equal, one of the boys for her to be fully accepted into the bullpen, while still being corrected like one would do a daughter, for her to achieve her objective. Not that Gibbs had wanted to see that, he had simply taken Tony's explanation about different culture, soldier and equality and had delivered a couple of headslaps to Ziva.  
It was only now that he was able to see, that Tony had turned the operatives bias about him around to have her unbalanced. He let her see his genius when it came to investigative work while just a moment later being admonished for goofing off.  
Probably the only reason he survived four months as her direct supervisor.

It's not like he actually had a lot of stock in psychobabble, but he had picked up a thing or two over the years. Just because he didn't like talking to a therapist, didn't mean that he couldn't appreciate their methods.  
So, yeah, Ziva had been able to play him, because he had wanted to have that hole in his heart filled. You didn't need to be a psychiatrist to see that. He didn't have three failed marriages, each with a visual copy of Shannon, and hadn't already seen the pattern. If he had wanted a new version of Shannon, he sure as hell had longed for a new Kelly too.

Kate never was girly enough to fill that gap. She was to grown up, to set in her ways to ever be a substitute. To much like a sister for DiNozzo.  
The other female team-members never stayed around long enough to even come close to that familial circle no matter their characters.  
Ziva seemed to be just right. Young and troubled, with family issues and in desperate need for a new father figure. Never Officer David to him, only ever Ziva. Most of it an act of course.

With Kate Tony played the fratboy, the bigger brother, who was a total pig, but still a good guy, who would take a bullet for you in a heartbeat. And he would have, if he had been given just the slightest chance.  
The former secret service agent was to hardened in trying to somehow amount to something a field domineered by men. She needed to feel superior. At the same time Tony used her bias against her and educated her on other ways to see the world. But most importantly he made sure she had a friend, by basically pushing her and Abby together.

Gibbs gave up sitting on the saw horse at the workbench and after sweeping the glass shards to one side of the room, grabbed the bottle and lay down beneath the cabin of his latest boat. The only boat that would see port and be sailed.

He missed his senior field agent. He missed the easiness of working side by side, words rarely needed. Not that it stopped Tony's endless jabber about some thing or the other. But then was one of the things that had endeared him to the older agent in the first place.  
The man simply never shut up.  
Even when chasing a suspect per foot through some dirty back alleys he ran a monologue about the advantages of tube socks! He had not stopped talking all the way to the station and while they waited on confirmation of Gibbs' status as federal agent. 

The only times Tony had shut up something had been truly amiss.  
When his partner in Baltimore had turned out to be dirty.  
When his fiancée had left him.  
When they had buried Kate.  
When the explosion on board the “Bakir Kamir” had put Gibbs into a coma.

Hindsight truly was 20/20. He should have tried to hold Tony, instead had given him every reason to leave. He hadn't had his back.  
Not in the field! Never in the field! But everywhere else. Over the years he had come to believe in the persona Tony played at work. But that's no excuse for Gibbs, since he simply KNEW better.  
If there was one person who should have been able to see beneath the masks it should have been him!

Gibbs had handpicked him. He had trusted the younger man without a doubt from day one. Who in turn never betrayed that trust. Never used his knowledge to his advantage or to make himself appear better in the eyes of other team members. Tony had never told anyone about his girls until the explosion forced his personal information out into the open.  
He had repaid him with mistrust and degradation.

Now all he had left was to get drunk in his cold basement, sleeping under the boat, to not face too many of the ghosts of his past.  
Gibbs had tried to speak to Tony. But by the time that first work day finally had come to a close and he had made his way over to the apartment it had already been dark and empty.  
Tony had only needed 24 hours to clean out his entire life in DC and leave. No forwarding address, no personal telephone number. Heck, it had taken him a couple months even figuring out where he had been transferred to. Complete and utter radio silence.

There was nothing he could do about it but pickle his liver in bourbon, because the only one he would have been able to talk about that FUBAR just so happened to be the currently and for the foreseeable future unavailable one!  
And Fornell was just not an option. As good as a friend as he had become, there were simply things that the FBI agent could not understand. Not that Gibbs planned of educating him on those matters any time soon. There was no reason any way.  
Not with Tony just under 4000 miles away and an ocean apart. And so many things to atone for.

The last conscious thought running through Gibbs' mind, before falling into a deep alcohol induced slumber: “I screwed up. I'm sorry, Tony.”


End file.
